[boost] CMake Modularization

Subject: [boost] CMake Modularization
From: Philip Woods (elzairthesorcerermailinglist_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-09-27 11:04:36

CMake is a widely used build system and has become for many the de facto
standard. Boost is a
widely used collection of modules and has become for many part of the de
facto standard.
However, the two do not play very well together. I know there is another
port of boost to CMake, but
it has lain dormant for years and uses an old version of boost; plus I
chose to take a different route.
The old project attempted to completely replace Boost.Build with CMake. My
example port simply
allows people to more easily use boost modules in their projects.

I created an example project
https://github.com/Elzair/cmake-boost-filesystem-test to demonstrate
my ideas. I added CMake build support to the minimum number of modules
needed to support this
demo: https://github.com/Elzair/assert https://github.com/Elzair/config
https://github.com/Elzair/core
https://github.com/Elzair/filesystem/tree/master and
https://github.com/Elzair/system

I even added CMake build support to the header only boost libraries. I did
this for two reasons.
First, I did not want users to have to fool with CMake's find_package().
Second, I wanted to add
helpful error messages in case a user has not included all of a module's
dependencies (or added
them in the wrong order).

Would the community be interested in modular CMake support for more
modules? Any comments, questions, critiques or suggestions are welcome.